The Trump Administration continues to hold out April as a goal for finalizing a peace deal in Afghanistan. There is little public sign of progress being made toward that end, however, and reasons to be pessimistic.
US talks with the Taliban have been limited, and what’s happened so far is unclear. The Afghan government’s peace council has expressed opposition to the US making deals with the Taliban without them, while the Taliban has seen little reason to negotiate with an Afghan government that doesn’t have the power to make any deals without US permission.
But most importantly, the military situation in Afghanistan keeps getting worse, not better. This is derailing military expectations that they can enforce a better settlement in the future, and also has the military increasingly vocal in opposition to withdrawing from Afghanistan in defeat.
This all combines into a lot of push-back against getting a deal done in the next few months, and combining that with the administration’s constant interest in blaming Pakistan when the war is going badly, it’s hard to envision everyone coming to a reasonable realization that the Afghan War is better off ending sooner, rather than later.
As always there are reasons to be pessimistic but at the same time there are reasons for hope. We are having peace negotiations, that’s a good thing. Furthermore, even though the Taliban controls more territory than in the past, that control doesn’t come without a price itself. It’s expensive to administer any territory they take and trying to hold territory takes more troops, than hit and run stuff.
Their losses have been high this year too and more importantly the people of Afghanistan themselves have been pushing for peace.
We talk about the “Taliban” as if somehow they are this complete and separate entity from the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, when in fact they are representative of a large group of people. They are literally those people’s military and political representation.
Are the Pashtun tired of fighting?
Isn’t that the more important question? I think that many of them are in fact ready to end the fighting, not that they would surrender or anything remotely like that. However, they might very well be willing to “not sack Kabul” if they are given control over their own lands, call it autonomy if you will, but it amounts to basically what always happens. Land for peace. Give them control of the land they grew up on and live on and then maybe we can have peace. If we demand that we must rule it all, we will lose it all, the Taliban will sack Kabul and millions more lives will be destroyed too.
From the various sources I’ve read Trump is putting a lot of pressure on the diplomats to make a deal and they are in fact afraid that if they don’t get a deal that Trump will just pull out. Most of the people here think that’s a good idea, (just pull out). Maybe it is and if the alternative is another decade of war then I would absolutely agree. However, if there is any chance to avoid Kabul being sacked and it can be accomplished in a relatively short term then why not try and isn’t that better than another Surge which we might very well get whether we like it or not?
I hope they manage to find some way to allow the Taliban to be given autonomy so this war can finally end. I think (diplomatically) you go in and make that offer sincerely to the Taliban and you tell the government in Kabul that we are pulling out regardless, so they better get on board or be prepared for whatever happens next.